As part of managing the national security policy for the Reagan administration, Senior Interagency Groups, members of the National Security Council staff or the Advisor to the President for National Security could call for a policy study on significant security issues. The President would then issue a National Security Study Directive (NSSD) calling for these policy studies. Each NSSD would contain a definition of the problem; a statement of the President’s policy goals; questions to be answered by the policy study; responsibilities for creating the study and possible due dates. The resulting study was used as the framework for United States national security policy. The President would then enact this policy in National Security Decision Directives (NSDDs). The originals of these documents are Presidential records in the custody of the NSC. As the NSC declassifies and releases NSSDs, public reference copies are placed with the National Archives at College Park, Maryland and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Below is a current list with links to the digital copies of all NSSDs declassified in full and in part from President Reagan's two administrations.

Titles with an asterisk (*) indicate NSSD’s which are declassified in part. The remaining titles are declassified in full.